Together
by shadowhuntingdauntlessdemigod
Summary: MOVIE SPOILERS. Alternate ending. This time, Brand refuses to let Cooper fall by himself. She is trying to decide if she has feelings for a man she doesn't know very well while falling to what could be her death. Will they both survive, or will each of them face death at the hands of the black hole? Two-shot right now, but I could make it longer. I suck at summaries. T for safety.
1. Chapter 1

**Here's just a quick fanfic I wrote after seeing Interstellar for the second time in the theater. I absolutely love this movie. This is an alternate ending. SPOILERS. I hope you all enjoy!**

**If you want music to listen to, I suggest listening to NO Time For Caution, from the Interstellar soundtrack. I listened to it while writing this.**

**Reviews are much appreciated :) I hope you all enjoy!**

The compartment carrying TARS dropped into the black hole, falling for a few seconds before the final image of it disappeared, possibly forever. The blackness swallowed it up, along with the starlight and other space objects, spinning around the hole before plummeting into its' depths.

Cooper readied his compartment for disengagement, as well as his mind. What would he find there, if anything?

"Cooper, is TARS responding?" Brand spoke over the intercom. She was met with silence as she heard the faint sounds of buttons being pressed in the background. "Cooper, what are you doing?"

She looked through her window and down on his compartment window, where he was bent over at the controls, furiously tapping buttons and turning dials. When he did look up, she saw something in his eyes that she had never seen before. A look that made her uneasy.

Uncertainty.

"Newton's third law. Gotta get rid of some things so other things can go on," he stated. She could hear the undertone of fear in his voice, no matter how well he tried to mask it.

The space cowboy was scared.

"You are not leaving me!" Brand yelled.

"Yes I am. One of us has to survive. Go find Edmunds. Make Plan B work," he ordered. He had finished pressing buttons and was looking directly at Brand.

"It won't work without you. I won't be able to survive on my own out there. I'll go crazy," she replied.

"Ah, you're a tough woman. Besides, you wouldn't be any less crazy than you are now," he said back and flashed a smile.

"I am not letting you fall."

Brand pushed some more buttons on the dashboard, locking in Cooper's compartment with hers.

"CASE, lock and seal all compartments together!"

"Done. Will you require anything else?" CASE asked in his robotic, monotone voice.

"Brand, you can't do this. You'll die too if the weight isn't balanced!" Cooper shouted.

"At least we'll be together," she replied softly.

"Any other orders?" CASE repeated, always wanting to be sure of everything.

"Turn off the engines. There's no way we'll escape the pull now. No sense in wasting more fuel than we have to, it may come in handy later. Let's just go willingly."

"What about Edmunds?" Cooper asked as the engines littered to a stop, the blue glow fading from the back of the ship.

She took a deep breath. "His transmitter stopped working. Which means that either it broke, something went wrong on the planet, or he's dead. We don't want another Mann issue," Brand replied.

The ship began to fall towards the hole. The light surrounding the hole was astoundingly bright before it delved and disappeared into the blackness where nothing escaped.

"Brand, please." Cooper looked up at her with sad eyes. He was prepared for this, he was mentally ready to face what would come, but she wasn't. He could tell.

They were both just astronauts, floating in a metal machine, bound for death at the ultimate site of darkness.

"You can't talk me out of it," she replied.

The pull became stronger as the ship jerked towards the left, closer to the hole. Everything was being pulled with incredible force. The entire ship itself shuddered, horrible sounds of metal scraping against metal filled the cabin. Brand fought against the spots that danced before her eyes, forcing herself to stay awake.

She was facing the black hole, looking directly at what would become the object causing her doom. Cooper, however, was faced away from the hole, looking at her, his gaze never lingering.

The hole pulled them closer, multiple alarms blaring and beeping with red lights, telling her that something was terribly wrong.

Cooper's eyes were closed, he had possibly fainted. Until she saw him mouthing something.

_"I'm sorry."_ was what he mouthed. His eyes remained closed.

Brand tried to turn on the comm, but the connection was cut. She was left to look at the hole, looming ominously in front of her. The only thing she saw was black. All of the starlight had been blocked out, the pull towards the center almost too much to bear. But they were almost there.

Cooper opened his eyes finally and gave her a half-hearted smile and a small thumbs up.

Brand smiled in return and gave her own thumbs up.

The hole seemed to slip away and it was just her and Cooper.

The pull became too much and they were dragged into the hole, ship and all.

Everything was black, a complete and utter nothingness was all Brand saw as she was forced into her chair by the force of traveling. The ship shuddered more, as if the unfeeling, metal monster was afraid of the unknown.

Small specks began to dust the ship. The specks became rocks, pummeling the metal surface of the ship. The glass in front of her began to fracture, splinters of glass flying throughout the cabin. Brand was flung upwards by the sudden change in direction, her helmet crashing together with the ceiling, cracking with a sickening sound. The rocks then became flashes of light, connecting with the metal ship at various intervals, damaging the hull. Then everything stopped and they were simply being thrown in various directions as the black hole changed the path of their vessel.

Brand got back into her chair and held on, her eyes looking down at Cooper as she struggled to stay awake. His eyes were on her as well, his arms strained tightly on the arms of his chair."

"Eject," a voice began saying. "Eject." Cooper heard it as well and looked around confused.

_"Together,"_ Brand mouthed to him. His head slightly nodded and in the same instant, they pulled the eject cords and were flung into space.

Brand held her breath as the ship continued on without them and then disappeared into the blackness as well. They were surrounded by the sea of black that would overtake them any minute. It was just her and Cooper. Nothing else for possibly millions, trillions of miles. They were alone. They were lost in space.

CASE had unfortunately gone with the ship, disappearing with it. Brand felt a pang of sadness. Sure, CASE was just a robot, but he had grown on her. It hurt to lose him and TARS, as they had been as much a part of the mission as the actual humans.

"Brand!" she heard over her comm. "Take my hand!"

Brand went to release the air she had been holding and tried to take another breath in, but it didn't come. Her lungs burned from the lack of oxygen.

Her helmet was cracked. Feeling along the spherical dome of glass that kept her alive inside and the outside out, a large crack had formed along the top of her helmet. The hiss of air leaving her suit may as well have been the sound of life leaving her floating body.

"Cooper, my helmet cracked. No air. You have to go," she begged.

"We came this far. I am not leaving you," he insisted.

Brand's eyes were starting to close, her head feeling light as she floated through space.

She could barely see Cooper pulling something out from his belt. He swam through the nothingness and reached her, a roll of duct tape in his hand. He unraveled some of it, cursing as his gloved hands fought to remove a strip of tape.

The light was faint and Brand had no idea where it was coming from. But she was grateful that if she had to die, at least she wouldn't die in complete darkness.

He pulled some off and quickly attached it to where her helmet was leaking oxygen. The air started to recirculate through her suit, but the tape wasn't perfect. Some still leaked out, but it was better than nothing.

"You are going to make it," Cooper ordered. His gloved hand found hers and squeezed it, reminding her that she still had something amongst this nothingness.

They began falling. Very quickly, falling through space. The light was bending, Cooper clutching her hand tighter.

A bump in the fall made him lose his grip on her.

"Brand!" he yelled as the fall pulled him in a different direction. The black spots began to overtake her vision as she kept falling.

"I'm sorry," he'd said. No, not sorry to her, sorry to Murph. He would probably never see her again, no matter how old she was.

"I'm sorry too," she whispered although no one could hear her. She was completely and utterly alone, nothing in sight but the eternal blackness.

She simply kept falling, the light fading away before her closing eyes.

Still falling, she finally let herself lose consciousness.

**I'm not sure if I will end it here, but this is all I have done so far. I could continue it, but I will leave that up to you guys to tell me if you want more or not. Hopefully the characters weren't too OOC, and sorry if they were.**


	2. The Bookcase

**This has kinda morphed into an alternate ending now. If you want me to continue, PLEASE let me know. I will update whenever I can, but I have 2 other stories to work on and another one-shot. Thanks for the support and I hope you enjoy :)**

**Interstellar does not belong to me, wow, shocker.**

When her eyes began to take in light again, Brand awoke with a gasp. She was still falling, though not as fast. How long she had been in this state, she had no idea.

Looking below her, a honeycomb pattern of boxes were opening up. She slipped inside one of them, falling among thousands of colors, all in lines around her. She reached out a hand and grabbed onto one of the lines, willing herself to come to a stop.

Brand screeched to a halt and took a few deep breaths. Her air had been mostly replenished, although it was still too thin to be enjoyable. She was hanging on to a pulsating line of color that seemed to extend from a bookshelf.

"Bookshelf?" she whispered to herself. Sure enough, as she went closer, a book shelf was right in front of her. And all around her.

On all of the sides she could see, a bookshelf stood there. When she looked down, she could see a young girl walking around her room, where the bookshelf must be. _"Where am I?"_ she asked herself.

Brand let go of the bookshelf and pushed herself forward, watching as hundreds of bookshelves passed by her on all sides. Old, brown wood was the frame and the books themselves looked old as well. When she came to a stop, she was in front of the exact same bookshelf. She looked down, seeing now that the girl was sitting on her bed as a man came through her door. The girl crept under the covers, looking as if to be crying. The man came next to her and sat down, trying and failing to console her. But the man was familiar.

"Cooper?" she asked. He did not respond. It was like she was watching a video play itself out. He gave the girl, probably his daughter, a watch, which she threw against the wall. As he turned to go out the door, a book fell. Cooper turned and looked before continuing on his way, leaving his daughter crying in her bed.

"Murph! Make me stay!" someone shouted. Brand wondered how she could be hearing if she were in space, and realized that her comm was on.

What she was hearing, was Cooper.

"Cooper!" she yelled. He didn't hear her. Maybe her comm was broken on her side, or something was interfering, but she let go of the bookcase and swam forward again.

If she heard Cooper on the comm, then he must be close by. "Cooper!" she yelled again. All she was met with was the sound of sobs. Sobs that meant his heart had broken.

The images of the girl's bedroom flew by faster now. The girl was no longer present. Flashes of other people, entering and exiting the room were all she saw as she kept moving. "Cooper!" she tried again. For a brief second, the sobs stopped, as if to listen to what she had to say. Brand stopped at one of the bookshelves and looked around.

Something white seemed to dance before her vision, in front of one of the bookcases. "Cooper?" she asked as she came closer. He was waving his hand in a line-like fashion, seeming to draw in space. After he finished that, his hand hung loosely at his side and he just sat there silently, unmoving, as if listening to something.

"Cooper!" That time, he heard her.

"Amelia?" he asked as he turned around, looking like he expected to see a ghost. When he lay eyes on her, his lips burst open in a smile. She swam forward to meet him and he enveloped her in the best hug he could give in a space-suit.

"How are you here?" he asked.

"I did a lot of falling," she explained and grinned. "What are you doing?"

"Helping the future," he replied blatantly. She watched as his finger moved up and down slightly on one strip of color.

"Dot, dash, dot, dot," he said to himself, replaying that to what his finger was tapping. He was sending a morse-code message, but to who?

"Who are you sending the message to?"

"My daughter, Murph. I'm translating the formula into morse code onto the second hand of the watch I gave her as a little girl when I left."

"How do you know it will work, or that she'll be able to translate it?" Brand asked as Cooper continued to tap on the strip.

"Because she's my daughter," Cooper replied and smiled. He pulled his finger off and let it hang loosely at his side.

"How do you know?" Cooper asked.

"Excuse me?" Brand replied. She hadn't said anything.

"You can't hear him? TARS survived the fall with me. He's been talking to me on the comm since I got here."

"No, I can't hear him," Brand stated.

She gasped as the walls of wherever they were began to fold and close in on themselves, bursting until they gave way to a bright light.

"People built this. Not now, but sometime in the future. We will be capable of this," Cooper said quietly, almost to himself.

"You sure you didn't hit your head on the way down?" Brand asked.

Cooper simply turned his head and smiled at her. He was facing away from the folding blocks, and she was faced towards it.

"Can you promise me something?" Brand whispered with a shaking voice.

"I was once told never to tell a promise that I may not be able to keep, I don't have much to lose now," Cooper responded.

"Promise we'll stay together?"

"I don't think that universe will let me have a say in that, I'll do whatever I can to keep that promise," Cooper smirked.

A bright flash of light blinded her vision and for a moment she caught herself holding her breath as space flew by her in all directions. She had lost sight of Cooper the moment the flash went off. Brand lay still, letting whatever it was take her wherever she was bound. She did not move for a matter of seconds.

Cooper's smiling face stuck in her mind. Was she drawn to a man she barely knew? She shook the thought away rather than let it run rampant in her mind.

How long were those seconds in Earth time? Hours? Months? Decades? She had no idea. What scared her the most was not the fact of being flung through space alone, but the thought of if she would get back and what everything would look like once she got back.

Brand soon saw the white light fading, giving way to a deeper blackness. Stars glittered off in the distance, and before her were the rings of Saturn. She was back home.

Two lights flashed on and off in the distance, orbiting Saturn. Brand looked around frantically for Cooper, for any sign of him. But he was nowhere to be seen. She had simply appeared out of the blackness, nothing else with her. Once again, she was alone in space. But at least she partially knew the territory.

He had promised her. He was out there somewhere.

The two bright lights were getting brighter, bigger, coming towards her. Brand continued to lay still, floating in the ice space, a small amount of sunlight reflecting off her helmet.

Soon the lights were upon her. Something pulled her up, towards whatever was above her. She still remained still.

The pull stopped and she was dropped.

_"Dropped,"_ she thought to herself. Gravity was a punishing thing after being without it for so long. She fought to stay awake as new air was pushed into her helmet and she was lifted up and carted off, probably on a stretcher. Cooper's smiling face still stayed with her, the promise he would try to keep remained in her mind.

"Amelia Brand?" someone said as she was being rolled down a long hallway on the stretcher. The details flitted away from her as her head spun with dizziness. "Stay with us. We are here to help you."


End file.
